Obama's Faustian Bargain
The assumption that the Obama administration's diplomatic initiative to our enemies will enhance America's image in the world has yet to be proven. What should concern us more however is the price our enemies will exact from us as part of that rapproachement, and whether it is really and truly worth the cost? As Barry Rubin of the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Israel wrote recently: "In the Middle East, it is not so useful to think yourself popular and show yourself to be friendly. You have to inspire fear in your enemies and confidence in your friends. And if you don't inspire fear in your enemies - if you're too nice to them - then you will indeed foment fear among your friends." That is because the culture of the modern Arab/Persian world has not descended from the Reformation, the Enlightenment, John Locke, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, but from radical jihadi Salafists like Ibn Tamiya in the 15th century and Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (Wahhabism) in the 18th century whose descendants now seek to return Islam and the world back to the Dark Ages.